Posted By John Ingold On July 8, 2011 @ 6:43 am In General | No Comments

A morning news round-up for a Friday where it’s all still soaking in.

1. IN THE POST: Caitlin Gibbons reports that Jefferson County officials — in a campaign reminding dog owners that “there is no poop fairy” — are threatening tickets and fines[1] to people who don’t pick up after their pooches.

Also:

– Joey Bunch and Caitlin Gibbons provide all the details on a humdinger of a rain storm[2] and subsequent flooding that floated manhole covers down the street.

2. AROUND COLORADO: The Aspen Daily News reports that James Bennet, the editor of The Atlantic magazine and the brother of Colorado U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, was arrested for driving under the influence[4], but because Bennet said he had only one drink and refused to take a breath test, the case seems far from air-tight.

Also:

– The Loveland Reporter-Herald says authorities are trying to determine whether a Larimer County Coroner’s investigator was acting in self-defense when he gunned down his father[5] inside his Loveland home.

– The Boulder Daily Camera reports that the woman suspected of killing her cat by blowing heroin smoke in its face has said she would never hurt the kitty[6] and denied even smoking heroin.

– The Pueblo Chieftain reports on an Alamosa teen who was shot and wounded[7] by Walsenburg police after ramming a stolen van into a sheriff’s cruiser at a roadblock intended to catch him.

– The Durango Herald notes that lawyers fought it out in federal court[8] yesterday over whether the lawsuit of a former Mancos school principal against the school district she says unfairly canned her can proceed.

3. AROUND THE NATION: Texas yesterday executed a Mexican citizen who raped and murdered a 16-year-old girl. The execution came after the Supreme Court refused to grant a stay, over the pleas of the Obama Administration, which argued that the rights of foreign prisoners and international treaties needed to be more carefully considered. The New York Times has the legal analysis of the decision[9], while the Associated Press’s Michael Graczyk recounts the drama inside the execution chamber[10]. Graczyk, incidentally, has most likely witnessed more executions than any other person in America, according to a 2009 CNN report[11]. He was also featured in a New York Times story from that year that examined how newspaper cutbacks meant that fewer and fewer reporters were there to witness a state’s ultimate punishment[12].

– There is comedy. There is high comedy. And then there is, as the Fort Myers News-Press reports, an exhausted patrol deputy in Florida commandeering a golf cart[14] from a resident of a gated community to finish off the foot chase of a fleeing, and also exhausted, domestic-violence suspect. (I originally found this story on the St. Pete Times’ Bizarre Florida[15] blog.)